Security continues to present challenges as hackers and other malicious party's attempt to gain unauthorized access to sensitive computers and associated networks. The prior art is full of examples that attempt to reduce such unauthorized access. One of the most rudimentary forms of security is the requirement for users to present a unique login and password combination. Once the user is logged in, other security techniques can be employed such as the use of encryption of the user's communications to prevent eavesdroppers from gaining access to those communications.
Many problems of course persist with prior art security techniques. For example, it is accepted that the greater the security protocols, the greater difficulty it can be for the user to actually make use of the computer. For example, it can be required to have the user reenter the login and password after a period of inactivity. If that period of inactivity is excessively short, the user will spend more time authenticating him or herself rather than actually performing the computing task. By the same token, where the user is switches the computing device through which the user wishes to access the computer network, it can be tedious to require the user to reenter the login and password each time the user switches to another device. Still further problems arise when the switch of user devices also involves the user switching the type of network being utilized.
While the foregoing problems, and variations thereof, arise in a number of applications, it is helpful to describe a specific example. In mobile networks employed by certain police forces, police cruisers are typically equipped with a laptop computer that is able to wirelessly access a server that is operated by a police force respective to that cruiser. The police force server can hold a variety of sensitive police records that will help the police officer with his or her duties. Such police records can include, for example, criminal records. Thus, the laptop computer is used to allow the officer to access criminal records, but it is also very important that access to those criminal records be restricted to the police officer. Clearly, a high level of security is needed, yet the security protocols cannot be so onerous that the officer is unable to make effective use of this law enforcement tool. The foregoing security needs are further complicated by the increasing use of wireless personal digital assistants (“WPDA”) by the police officer. In this situation, a police officer may wish to take the WPDA from the cruiser and yet still be able to access the police force server and the criminal records thereon. Further complications arise where the police officer desires to move from using the laptop to the WPDA several times in a shift.